'The Forsytes' Recap: Episode 3

The Forsytes airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
Keep up with your favorite dramas and mysteries by signing up for our newsletter, Dramalogue. 

Jo’s decade-ago relationship with Louisa and the resulting twin children was supposed to be kept secret, but the whole Forsyte family knows before long. James has guessed at it, and is now scheming to use it to expel Jo from the family firm, thus ensuring his own son Soames can be chairman. Soames objects to the scheming because he wants to be chairman on his own merits, but James promises he’ll take care of it without involving Soames. 

The newly revealed relationship is also causing problems between Jo and his stepdaughter June, who is now questioning if he actually loves her and her mother Frances. Frances herself is ready to look past everything, although the fact that she and Jo don’t have children of their own despite their desire makes the sudden appearance of different offspring even more difficult.

These complications are why Jolyon and Frances want Jo to forget Louisa and her children and maybe even pay for her to leave London. But Jo can’t overlook them now that he knows about them. He wants to support them financially.

When he once again ignores Louisa’s prescription not to visit and finds her in the market with their children, she rejects his offer of financial support. She’s proud that she raised two kids as a single mother. He again tells her he wishes she had contacted him when she learned she was pregnant; he would have married her even if it meant his family cut him off. 

June sees Jo in the market, smiling with his two children, and runs off upset to a person as likely to upset her family as  Louisa. June was in the market because she attended a meeting of the Fabians, socialists whose pamphlet she was handed by the bohemian Bosinney at the opera. She is drawn to the meeting both by a rebellious tendency and by her attraction to Bosinney.

At the meeting, she was impressed by Ellen Parker Barrington, a wealthy woman who now advocates on behalf of workers. June invited Bosinney to join her for cake in the park afterwards, learning that he is a modernist architect, and requesting his card. After seeing Jo with his biological children in the market, she flees to Bosinney’s garret for comfort and explains everything. 

Soames has also fallen in love with someone not approved by his family. They all believe he is to be engaged to Olivia Carteret and are eager to see her be his secret invited guest at the Epsom races where his brother-in-law Monty is debuting a horse. But – after Monty’s horse comes in third, infuriating Monty – Soames enters not with Olivia but with Irene Heron, whom he has now also given an engagement ring, to her shock. 

The family is speechless at Irene’s introduction, even more so when she mentions that “her people” were “no one of consequence.” Soames interrupts her before she explains that her mother was a dancer. 

He wants to marry in a fortnight – then they can head to Paris, where Irene wants to resume her ballet training. 

Soames’ mother Emily excuses his choice of wife. She’s happy – and somewhat envious – that he is marrying for love. His father, James, is decidedly not. 

Irene’s only surviving parent, her stepmother, is worried that Irene will embarrass herself with the Forsytes. But Irene says she can only do what feels right to her. She is candid with the Forsyte matriarch, Ann, when she comes to the house for a meeting with her. Ann sees and understands everything in her family; she is the only one who suspected Soames would not be getting engaged to Olivia Carteret. She tells Irene that Soames has never been in love before; he will spoil her to no end. Irene explains that she herself is not quite in love yet, but hopeful that she is on the way towards it. 

She might never be accepted by the family. Soames’ sister Winifred married Monty, whom her father, brother, and uncle regard as an imbecile. Winifred has always been upset that they won’t give him a job in the company. But when she learns about Jo’s children with Louisa – her relation to Jo made Louisa wary of making a dress for her – she spots an opening. If James is using Jo’s out-of-wedlock children to try to make the board expel him from the company, then a rubber-stamp vote on the board could be helpful. Winifred suggests Monty. James and Soames reluctantly agree.

Monty is approved as an addition to the board right before James brings up rumors about Jo’s children. Jo interrupts to defend himself, outing himself as the subject of James’ rumors and explaining everything in full. The board is shocked – but not more than by the sudden appearance of Ann. She brings up skeletons in the closet, pointedly looking at her two sons, who awkwardly look away. 

The board agrees that it could overlook Jo’s indiscretion if they could be assured Louisa will keep it quiet. Jo says he will support his children out of his own pocket, and that he’s not ashamed of them. He then leaves to let the board vote on whether he can remain part of the company.

They vote to keep him. Frances is more delighted than Jo, telling him that he can now recommit to his family. He says his devotion to her and June is absolute.

But this doesn’t mean he is going to forget his children, as Frances believes. I loved Louisa, he reaffirms to his wife. She tells him that his love for Louisa has no place in their house. Kill it or face the consequences.

June has taken her own lesson from Jo’s insistence on keeping Louisa and his children in his life. She will be freethinking and independent. True love is what matters.

Irene also believes this, and hopes that she, like her parents, can have a love match. Her worries delay her in arriving to her small, family-only wedding to Soames. But after making everyone wait – some anxiously, some with cruel delight – she appears and marries Soames.